Abstract
The major aim of medical screening for gastric cancer is of course to lower disease mortality. Early detection of gastric cancer allows the option of less invasive endoscopic treatment as an alternative to conventional surgery. Since endoscopic treatment greatly benefits the patients' quality of life, endoscopists should aim at diagnosing a lesion at the endoscopically treatable stage. In providing information for diagnosis, endoscopic examinations offer the advantage of visualizing the color changes of the lesions. These color changes are key indicators in the diagnosis of flat-type lesions typical of 0-IIb early gastric cancer, with redness, discoloration, and heterogeneous color changes serving as important findings. In particular, in cases of minute gastric cancer, these color changes are crucial indicators that allow detection of the lesion. It is necessary to pay attention not only to morphological changes, such as depression and elevation, but also to color changes as the key mucosal alterations allowing diagnosis of minute gastric cancer. The use of narrow band imaging (NBI) is expected to allow for more accurate diagnoses of minute gastric cancer.
